What Can Shine
by Najio
Summary: When a Dementor is brought to Beacon to help students learn the Patronus Charm, it turns out finding a 'happy memory' that works is a lot harder than it sounds. / Borrows some of the mechanics of Dementors and Patronuses from the Methods of Rationality, though reading that isn't necessary to understanding this. Oneshot.


Ruby was not the most precise of people.

Maybe being partnered with Weiss, who might actually be _the_ most precise of people, just made her look sloppy by comparison. She didn't mind, most of the time. Yang was way worse than she was, and anyway it was hardly ever worth all the effort to make things as neat and tidy as her partner liked them. The problem was that, sometimes, you really _did_ need to tilt your wand exactly forty degrees. Ruby was having some trouble with this.

She was far from alone. In fact, eighty percent of the class—not exactly, she didn't _need_ to be exact about percentages so she was kind of annoyed that she had to be exact about degrees—was still grouped in the courtyard, learning the initial wand movements of the Patronus Charm. Weiss had, of _course,_ been one of the first to master the insanely specific and complicated pattern of twitches and tilts that made up the first half of the spell, so she was off in another little circle trying to master the second part. And if Ruby didn't _hurry,_ her annoyingly precise partner would finish before she got there, and she wouldn't get to see her first Patronus. So she stumbled her way through the forms, memorizing the pattern and practicing until her brain felt like mush. Yang was next to her, tongue poking out as she fiddled with her wand. Blake, like Weiss, had gone on to the second form a while ago. This was starting to get frustrating.

Ruby tried again, forcing herself to breathe and just _go_ with it, because she'd done every single individual part right at least once and now it was just a matter of chaining them all together. That was harder than it sounded, mostly because her hand was shaking. Her whole body was shaking, actually. Vibrating, if you wanted to be really specific. Ruby wasn't _nervous,_ exactly, but she was definitely excited. Excited to the point where she was starting to have trouble focusing on the spell, which was awful because it made her anxious. And _that_ was awful because it didn't cancel out the excitement and help keep her hand steady, it just _added_ to the mess of emotions and made her even more jittery.

She went through the motions again, and this time it felt right to _her,_ though she'd thought that at least three times already before the nice man teaching them had gently pointed out that she'd done certain parts backwards. But, when she raised her hand to call him over, he just watched her, smiled, and nodded. She beamed wide enough that it hurt and sprinted off to find her other two teammates. Yang was still working on it, but as long as she didn't get mad and set the grass on fire, she'd probably figure it out in the next few minutes.

Weiss was easy enough to find, though she looked a bit... off. Ruby noticed that a lot of the other students that had finished the basic motions quickly were already gone. Ren and Pyrrha were the only ones she'd known by name, but one of the jerks on Cardin's team had been there too.

"Where'd Blake go?" she asked, looking around. Weiss jumped, then scowled at her. That probably wasn't very conductive to learning the Patronus Charm, but Ruby knew better by now than to point that out. Especially since, even as she watched, Weiss seemed to process the question and her expression shifted into a confused frown.

"I don't know, actually."

"Did she finish?"

Weiss shook her head. "I doubt it. Unless she went off somewhere to practice on her own." Ruby frowned. That made her a bit uneasy, but Blake might just have wanted privacy while learning the spell.

Walking over to stand next to her partner, Ruby took up her beginning stance. There didn't really need to be a stance, the important thing was the angles you tilted your wand and the distances you slid your fingers up or down, but it was the way she'd practiced it and by now it was habit. Then, she realized she should probably come up with a happy thought first.

Her first impulse was that it should be a memory of her mother. Mom had been a protector of the innocent, just like Ruby wanted to be someday, and she couldn't think of anyone who could be a more perfect match for a Patronus. She tried to bring up a memory, any memory. There was a vague impression in the back of her mind, the image of a white cloak leaning over her—but the face was lost under the hood, fuzzy and indistinct.

Ruby dropped her ready pose, falling into a half-slump and trying very hard not to cry. Next to her, Weiss was staring off into space, probably trying to come up with a happy thought of her own. Even as she watched, her partner briefly met her gaze and slid into the basic motions with practiced ease. Her left hand shot up and slashed down in a bold, sloppy sort of motion. Ruby really liked the final brandish—it was brash and defiant and didn't have to follow any sort of angle—but the motion seemed odd coming from Weiss. She looked phenomenally unsurprised when she said, "Expecto Patronum," and nothing happened. That was probably okay, then. If Weiss was still having trouble, it usually meant that the spell was hard and it would take _anyone_ a while to learn it.

Her next thought was of Uncle Qrow. He'd taught her everything he knew, laughing with her (and at her) whenever she messed something up and ended up turning her hair pink (the color had taken a week to fade), breaking a lamp (he'd ratted her out to her dad, the jerk), or setting the tablecloth on fire (though that was mostly Yang's fault, as every household incident involving flames seemed to be). She imagined him standing over her shoulder as she slid her fingers along her wand, twisting it just so in the palm of her hand. He'd be smiling that crooked smile he seemed to save just for her, leaning on his staff and drinking something mysterious that could probably strip paint.

This time when she raised her wand in the final brandish, she felt... warm. Well, she'd already felt warm because it was a sunny afternoon in May, but it was a different kind of warmth that came solely from the memory. And then she shouted, "Expecto Patronum!"

A thin veil of silver mist flowed from the end of her wand, swirling around her. She stared in open awe, and realized with a sudden wrench that she'd forgotten the color of her mother's eyes. She could tell because this was _it,_ she knew it when she saw it, but she hadn't remembered before.

"That was fast," Weiss said quietly over her shoulder. Ruby yelped, because she'd been kind of caught up and hadn't expected to be spoken to. Then she giggled.

"I guess." She poked at the silver fog, which was already starting to dissipate. "It's not an animal, though." She'd been _so_ looking forward to finding out what her Patronus would be, too.

"At least something happened," Weiss muttered. She sounded incredibly frustrated, and Ruby winced.

"Sorry." Her partner just rolled her eyes.

"Are you going to find some refreshments, now?"

Ruby glanced over at a nearby table, where other students who'd finished learning the charm were picking up drinks and snacks, then shook her head. "I think... I think I want to try it again." She had the sense that she was missing something obvious, and that something was the reason she'd gotten mist and not a corporeal Patronus. Weiss just shrugged, as if she couldn't possibly comprehend what was going through Ruby's thick skull but didn't want to bother arguing with her.

There was something missing, in the memory of Qrow. It certainly wasn't love or happiness, Ruby knew that instinctively. It was... it was something she was sure would have been present, if the memory had been of her mother. Of Summer. Her eyes were tearing up again, but she kept thinking. Her fingers slid automatically into the starting position for the Patronus Charm, and she breathed slowly and rhythmically.

Qrow was her family. He taught her everything he knew, he'd practically raised her and Yang for a while, even if he wasn't always around. She was too young to remember a lot of that, but she did have the vague sense that there had been a time when a nine-year-old Yang had done all the cooking, and it had _not_ worked out well—not that he was much better at it, but at least he could afford takeout. When her father hadn't really been there, Qrow was. He'd comforted them, told them stories, protected them.

 _There it is,_ she realized. Her mother had been a protector, she'd gone out and saved people and that had been her job. Ruby wanted to be like that when she grew up—she wanted to help people. And... Qrow probably wouldn't be there when she did. They'd be family, they'd love one another, that would never change—but he wouldn't be sheltering her anymore. _She_ would be the one protecting the innocent.

Ruby cast her mind back, flicking through memories and guided more by gut instinct than anything else. She thought back... and remembered. At the time she'd been lying on the ground, feeling more out of place than she ever had before in her life. And then a hand had passed into her field of vision.

She thought of Jaune, her first real friend at Beacon. She remembered the night in the Ballroom when she'd talked to Blake and managed to make her smile, though she hadn't known how rare that was at the time. She could see Weiss' face, peering over the edge of her bed as she told her that she had the makings of a good leader. And Yang, wrapping her up in a hug that had nearly choked the life out of her when she'd been chosen to lead their team.

Here she was, at one of the most prestigious magical schools in the world, and she'd _done it._ She'd gotten in two years early, she'd been made leader, she was learning the Patronus Charm. And, the one thing she'd _never_ expected... she'd made friends. Not Yang's friends who were nice to her because her sister had threatened to do unspeakable things to them if they weren't, but actual friends she'd made herself. And, together, they could be heroes just like mom and Uncle Qrow.

Ruby raised her wand, slashed it downward in a wide arc and shouted, "Expecto Patronum!" And there in front of her, standing up on its hind legs and looking at her expectantly, was a gleaming silver wolf.

It took a lot of effort to keep herself from squealing in pure delight. Her Patronus, which seemed vaguely confused as to why it had been summoned, since there weren't any Dementors, barked once and wagged its tail.

"Wow," Weiss breathed, from somewhere beside her. Ruby looked up, startled, and realized her partner was staring. She couldn't help it, at that point—she started bouncing up and down on her heels, beaming. The silver wolf yipped and charged off to run in circles around the pair of them. When one of the other students walked by, it hopped excitedly in front of him, as though it was protecting them. The student, who was absolutely no threat—his wand was stuffed in his belt so that he could carry both his plastic cup of lemonade and a plate full of brownies—stared at the silver creature in bemusement.

"I don't know what I expected," her partner mused, "But I can't imagine a more fitting Patronus for you than a wolf capable of driving off the darkest creatures known to man... that acts like an overexcited puppy."

"I think he looks a bit like Zwei," Ruby replied sagely.

* * *

Weiss was the third of the first-years to finish the basic gestures of the Patronus Charm. Pyrrha—and for some odd reason, one of team CRDL—were already practicing when she walked out onto the more open part of the lawn. She stood there about a minute, trying to come up with a memory that she could use to drive off the darkest of all creatures. It was harder than she'd expected, mostly because of how open-ended the question was. She was sure she could come up with something, if she were given an actual prompt rather than just being told to remember something happy.

While she was standing there, Ren wandered over from where the others were practicing the basic motions. He stopped next to Pyrrha, cocked his head to the side, and waited for about four seconds. Then he smiled, raised his wand, executed the basic motions, and flicked it again in what looked more like a lazy wave than a brandish. "Expecto Patronum," he said mildly. A silver snake burst from the end of his wand and landed coiled in the grass, raising its head to taste the air. If she hadn't known better, she would've been sure that he'd cast the spell before, that was how _fast_ it had happened. And, without another word, he walked off toward the refreshments table. Weiss _stared_.

Pyrrha seemed shocked, too, which made Weiss feel a little better. That was, until she finished thinking of whatever happy memory she wanted to use, and began the preliminary motions of the spell. Weiss was overcome by a sudden sense of embarrassment—no, that wasn't really it. She felt ashamed, and began the basic wand motions while still trying to think of something, because she didn't want to be seen standing there doing nothing.

She finished the spell at around the same time Pyrrha did. Hers did absolutely nothing, which was no surprise at all. In front of Pyrrha, a great silver tiger paced back and forth. Weiss watched them go, the Patronus flickering out as her classmate's attention was diverted. It hadn't taken her more than five minutes.

Gritting her teeth, Weiss turned away from the refreshments table and tried to concentrate. The obvious thought was to bring up a memory of her friends, her new life at Beacon—but the specifics eluded her. Maybe she was overthinking it. Still, it was hard to pick out an exact moment that could symbolize the way she'd felt ever since leaving home.

She considered the time she'd pledged to Ruby to be the best teammate she'd ever had—and felt a twinge of nervousness. Her wand twitched in her hand. The moments leading up to that... in retrospect she'd been harsh, to put it mildly. She wondered if the Patronus Charm would know what had lead up to it, if she used that memory. She could try it later, once she had a better grasp on the spell. When she was _sure_ she wouldn't mess up the hand motions. With that in mind, she cast her memory back to Atlas, to her family.

Weiss instantly discounted any moment that included Whitley. She supposed he must have been cute as a baby, but she couldn't actually remember a time when he wasn't walking and talking and making a nuisance of himself. There was Winter, though she hadn't seen her in a long time. All her most vivid memories seemed to be of them when they were children. She remembered when Winter had been a force in their household, almost as potent as their father. They'd argued a lot, leading up to her leaving for the military. None of those memories felt like the sort of thing that could drive away a Dementor.

There was something, though. A memory from when she was very small, before the first executive had disappeared. She probably hadn't been more than six, and she'd managed to slip away from her nanny and run all the way to her father's office. The door had been closed, the knob too high for her to reach. So she'd knocked, and her father had answered. He'd towered over her, until he knelt down and smiled. Weiss was sure he'd been busy. That wasn't even a question—he was always busy with something. But he'd picked her up and placed her in his lap, and gone on scratching out arcane formulas and numbers that had boggled her mind as she watched. He'd talked while he'd done it, explained what he was doing and why, not speaking down to her even though half of what he said flew right over her head. Ever since, she'd had an irrational affection for compound interest.

This time, when she slid her fingers along her wand in the opening sequence of the Patronus Charm, she was sure it would work. So when she brandished her wand, shouting _Expecto Patronum_ like it was the last thing she'd ever say, it took her a moment to realize that there was nothing in front of her. No animal. No mist. Nothing.

For a moment, she stared dumbly at the empty ground. Then, she had to bite her lip to keep it from trembling. That, too, she realized, had been tarnished. She couldn't think of only that one time she'd been in his office, balanced on his lap and listening to the sound of his voice. Not without remembering _other_ meetings in that same room, the not-so-subtle hints that perhaps she ought to sing at the next concert, that maybe it would be best if she didn't wear her hair like that, that it was time to _grow up._ Back straight, look people in the eye, show no fear. Don't cry in public.

She took a deep, steadying breath, and slid her hand back into the opening position of the charm. Maybe she couldn't think of her father, and her mother was probably out of the question, too. But there had to be some memory of Winter—

"Where'd Blake go?"

Weiss nearly jumped out of her skin. Turning, she found Ruby glancing around the courtyard, fiddling with her wand. She opened her mouth to say that Blake was probably still learning the starting gestures—but no, Blake had finished those a little after Ren.

"I don't know, actually," she realized.

"Did she finish?"

"I doubt it. Unless she went off somewhere to practice on her own." Weiss was starting to wish she could do the same. It would spare her the embarrassment of waving her wand over and over, only for nothing whatsoever to happen.

Ruby, much like Pyrrha, wasn't there very long. By her second attempt, she had a full corporeal Patronus chasing its own tail in front of her. Weiss stared at the brilliant silver creature. It seemed wrong to look at something so beautiful and be _jealous,_ which left her feeling very small and mean.

"I'll grab us some drinks, okay?" Ruby said, pointing at the table a few yards away. Her Patronus, which had been rolling around in the grass and snapping at butterflies, vanished into a puff of silver smoke as her attention shifted. Weiss nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak.

Once her partner was gone, Weiss went back to staring into space. She brought her hand into the starting position again, and hesitated. She should just use her first thought, when she'd told Ruby how she'd always wanted bunk beds. She should just _do_ it, because it was becoming increasingly obvious that she might be here for hours, getting more and more frustrated, because she was too stubborn to use the memory that had the best chance of working.

She went through the motions, trying to remember the exact feeling of the moment—the smell of too-sweet coffee and the quiet rustle of paper as Ruby sat on her notes. Weiss had sworn to be the best teammate she could, to trust her newfound friends and do whatever she could to help them.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Nothing happened. Weiss slumped where she stood. That was it, wasn't it? Her best chance, and it had failed. _She_ had failed.

"You too, huh?"

For the second time that afternoon, Weiss started and whirled around, heart racing. This time it was Yang standing there, twirling her wand in one hand. "What?" she demanded, folding her arms over her chest.

"I keep trying, and nothing happens." Yang scowled at her wand. "Maybe I'm doing the motions wrong, I can't really tell."

"I could watch you try, and see if I catch anything," Weiss offered. She wanted a break from failure.

Yang grinned at her and took up the starting position. Her movements were a bit stiff and awkward, but as far as Weiss could tell they were perfectly acceptable.

"I can't see anything wrong," she admitted.

"Didn't think so." Yang sighed, then scrunched up her brow as she tried to think of another memory. Weiss followed suit, though her heart wasn't really in it. How long had she been here, anyway? Half an hour? More?

This was stupid. There couldn't really be _nothing_ inside her that was bright enough to drive away a Dementor, could there? She scowled, frustrated, and started again. It wasn't going to work, she _knew_ it wasn't going to work, you couldn't cast the Patronus Charm with anger—but she was _not_ giving up. Her fingers slid along the wand, the motions so ingrained at this point that she barely had to think about them, while she searched for a happy memory. Nothing came to her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed Ruby returning from the refreshments table with a plastic red cup in each hand. What was it that she'd remembered? Why couldn't Weiss just _do_ it? Maybe all her memories were like the one of her father—they could have shone like that, once, but had been too corrupted by all the rest. By the images of his condescending sneer, of her mother standing listlessly in the garden with a glass in her hand, of the empty space Winter had left behind. And, for that moment with Ruby, by Weiss herself.

"Expecto Patronum," she mumbled. Nothing happened.

"Hey guys!" Ruby called out. She handed a drink to Yang, then offered the other to Weiss.

"No thank you," she said stiffly. She didn't want lemonade, not until she'd done it. It didn't have to be a corporeal Patronus, really, just some silver mist would be fine. Something, _anything_ to prove that she wasn't empty inside.

Weiss started the charm again. Each movement was stiff and wooden, like she was some sort of automaton. Another flash of anger—the spell wouldn't work, now, you needed a happy memory for the Patronus and it turned out she didn't have any that counted. Her throat burned, and her grip tightened.

 _No._ She wouldn't give up. She'd just keep trying, she'd stay up all _night_ if she had to. Her hand tilted exactly forty degrees, and she took a deep breath. Weiss lifted her wand for the final brandish, and found herself imagining that towering suit of armor standing in front of her. The scar over her eye tingled. She brought the wand crashing down, picturing the way the armor had been cleaved nearly in half by the Reductor Curse.

"Expecto Patronum!" she gritted out, thinking of how it had felt to be standing there, cheek sticky with blood, her whole body shaking with exhaustion. Something silver flew from the tip of her wand, and Weiss was so surprised she nearly fell over. Her Patronus beat a pair of shining wings, then landed on her outstretched arm. It was weightless, despite its size.

"Whoa!" Ruby breathed. Weiss had completely forgotten that she was there. She only had eyes for the sleek silver albatross perched on her wrist, preening its feathers. It turned and looked at her, and for a second she was afraid it would fly away, or maybe just disappear. It didn't move.

 _Why?_ she thought, staring back. That shouldn't have worked. Her fight with the knight hadn't been _happy._ She'd been angry at her father, angry at _herself_ for being injured, angry at Winter for not being there and at her mother for not caring. That wasn't the kind of thing that could drive away Dementors, it was what they _fed_ on.

The albatross cocked its head, spread its wings, and took off. It flew in a lazy circle around her head, then did a barrel roll in midair. Patronuses couldn't make any noise, but Weiss imagined that if it could, it would be hooting in triumph. _It's a bird,_ Weiss realized. She hadn't put that much thought into what her Patronus might be, when she'd been trying to cast it, but this felt right. Birds were symbols of freedom, and this one seemed to be quite enjoying itself.

That was it, wasn't it? Anger hadn't been the only thing she'd felt when she'd won that fight—she'd been free for the first time in years, and above all else she'd been _defiant._ Her father had told her she would be going to Atlas, had set her what he thought was an impossible task to keep her there, and she'd _won._

Weiss remembered the final brandish, the most uncontrolled motion of the Patronus Charm. It hadn't felt right until the last time she'd done it, the time she'd succeeded. She didn't think it was a happy gesture at all—it was a clenched fist, a raised sword, a refusal to back down before the darkest creatures known to man. It was, at its core, an _angry_ gesture.

She smiled. Maybe her not-so-happy thought had been rather fitting, after all.

* * *

Blake couldn't do it.

She'd stayed out in the courtyard with everyone else for as long as she could stand it, practicing the same motions over and over. She'd thought of Adam, of how he used to be, and she'd known even before she said the words that nothing would happen. But then she'd thought of her parents and her team, all her family, and it still hadn't worked. That was when she'd left.

Process of elimination. She'd tried everything that might have worked, and it hadn't done anything. Therefore, she couldn't do it.

Blake sighed and put a hand over her wand, wishing it could just be _over_ already. She was sick of learning the Patronus Charm—or, rather, sick of watching everyone else learn it. People were starting to give her odd looks, since she was one of the few who still hadn't managed to produce so much as a wisp of silver vapor. The rest of her class had apparently decided that being incapable of producing a Patronus meant there was something wrong with her. She might have agreed with them, actually, if it weren't for the fact that Yang hadn't been able to do it either.

Now they were all standing in the courtyard a day later, ready for the second lesson. There would be real Dementors today, and the thought of facing them when she probably wouldn't be able to produce a Patronus was gut-wrenching. And yet... they all needed to know what they felt like. Not for anything like curiosity, but because if they could recognize their approach, they could Disapparate if they ever felt them nearby. If Blake couldn't fight them, she would have to run away. Again.

There was also the slim hope that that, in the presence of a Dementor, they'd be able to cast the charm after all. As much as it seemed to go against conventional logic, there were wizards who had been completely unable to produce even a wisp of silver mist that had gone on to cast full corporeal Patronuses, once they were actually in one of the monsters' presence. Blake couldn't help but feel that she wouldn't be one of hem.

"Are you okay?" Blake turned her head and found that her partner was looking at her. She nodded, but Yang decided to give her a brief one-armed hug anyway.

Then they crested a small hill, and she could see it. A cage of solid titanium, a tattered black cloak... and something in the air, a slow creeping dread that ate away at her nerve until she was trembling like a leaf. They stopped walking—the front of the procession had reached the Dementor.

Beacon's first year class suddenly seemed much too small. There were only ten people in front of her, and for the first time all year she was glad that she went to school with CRDL. She almost turned to Yang, who was behind her—they were standing in team name order, with Ruby at the front—and asked if they could switch. She was sure her partner would agree, but if she retreated even that small distance, she would start walking towards the school building and never look back.

Blake tried to focus on her breathing. Somewhere ahead of her, Cardin Winchester shouted, _Expecto Patronum!_ She looked up a moment, and saw the massive bully quailing in abject terror. There was no silver animal in front of him, not even a breath of mist. He whimpered, and then Headmaster Ozpin and Professer Goodwitch both recast their Patronuses. A rather sedate-looking lion stretched out in front of the Dementor, tail twitching back and forth. Above it hovered a silver owl, hooting irritably.

Cardin stumbled past the rest of the first-years towards a table full of chocolate, ashen-faced. Blake watched him go. It was hard to feel vindicated or satisfied that a jerk like him had gotten what was coming to him, not when she knew the same thing was going to happen to her in only a few minutes.

She tried to look on the bright side. If she couldn't produce a Patronus, she would be spared finding out that it was a cat, and all the jokes that would inevitably follow. For one mad instant, she wondered what kind of pun Yang might make. Probably something idiotic like Purrtronus. She managed a half-hearted smile—and then, someone screamed.

Sky Lark sprinted away from the titanium cage, nearly dropping his wand as he tripped over his own feet and fell to his hands and knees. Then he recovered, and went tearing back towards the castle, ignoring the chocolate entirely. Blake's heart sank—she hadn't even noticed Russel and Dove taking their turns, and now there was only Ruby, Weiss, and team JNPR between her and that cage.

 _Maybe it'll work,_ she thought. It was possible, she knew it was, to go from nothing at all to a corporeal Patronus. Yang had interrogated Weiss and Ruby last night about how they'd done it—though both had been oddly reluctant to specify what their happy memory had been—and Weiss had eventually admitted that her thought hadn't been _happy,_ per se, and she hadn't expected it to work until it had. Blake cast her mind about for a memory she might have overlooked, and floundered a moment. She should have asked Weiss what that was supposed to mean.

Ahead of them, Jaune yelped. She looked up, but he seemed more startled than frightened. He was standing behind what looked like a dog—Blake couldn't help but grimace—and despite its diminutive size it was glaring fiercely at the Dementor. Ozpin and Goodwitch recast their own Patronuses, and Jaune walked over to the table of chocolate, high-fiving Ruby as he passed her.

And then there were five. Blake reached out in front of her and tapped Weiss on the shoulder. "What?" she asked, turning around and frowning.

"Yesterday," Blake whispered back, "you said your memory wasn't happy. What was it, then?" Weiss hesitated.

"Please," Blake hissed desperately.

"It was more... defiant." Weiss glanced towards the cage, her expression hardening. "Like I was waving a torch in a Dementor's face. It's hard to explain."

"Thank you," Blake murmured, and Weiss turned away. She felt her posture sag.

Defiance was what had driven her to join the White Fang. And then, when it had all gone so horribly wrong, she'd never faced the problem head-on, never challenged Adam directly. Instead she'd run away.

Nora produced a bear that stood up on its hind legs and towered over the Dementor. A massive silver tiger burst from Pyrrha's wand and roared soundlessly. Ren's snake lashed out at the monster and drove it into the corner of its cage, and he returned to the group wearing an oddly distant expression.

And then there were two. Blake grabbed her right hand with her left to stop them from shaking. She glanced towards the school, wishing she was back in their dorm. Her heartbeat was roaring in her ears, she could feel the rhythmic pulsing right down to her fingertips.

"Hey." Yang nudged her shoulder, and she curled in on herself. "You sure you want to do this?"

"I have to," Blake mumbled.

"It doesn't mean anything," Yang insisted. "I can't do it either, and it's not because we're evil or something. Our team knows that, and so does JNPR. You don't need to do this if you don't want to."

"No." Blake's vision blurred. "I mean I need to know what it feels like, in case I run into one of them outside Beacon." Yang didn't seem to have anything to say to that. Blake wished fervently that she did—she wanted to be argued into leaving, or at least distracted.

When she looked up again, Ruby's wolf was already disappearing into a puff of silver smoke as their leader trotted back to them. Weiss moved to take her place, and Blake found herself standing at the front of the line, around twenty feet from the Dementor. She could almost see it, now, though its face was lost in the shadow of its hood. Her head swam, and she wished feverishly that Weiss would stall—maybe she'd left her wand in their dorm and had to get it, or wanted to practice the basic motions a few more times, or...

Weiss' albatross burst into being, flapped its wings once, and settled on her shoulder. Blake stared past it, towards the ratty black cloak. It was so hot outside that she was sweating, but she thought she could feel a touch of cold settling in her gut.

The Patronus winked out. Weiss walked away, stopping to flash Blake an encouraging smile. At any other time, a rare display of affection from her most standoffish teammate would have felt good, but now it just made her queasy. She took a step forward, then another, fumbling for her wand. Even through the professors' Patronuses, she could feel the Dementor tugging at the edges of her consciousness.

Time seemed to slow as Blake approached the cage, step by step. Slowly, as though there were weights tied to her arm, she brought her hand up into the starting position. The owl and the lion winked out, and a wave of icy water broke over her mind, pulling her down into the dark.

Blake tried to think of Yang, and remembered the sound of her body smashing through a concrete pillar. She saw the look on Weiss' face as she revealed her past with the White Fang, pictured the great yawning abyss in the middle of a crumbling road and Ruby's wand lying abandoned at its edge. No longer was the Dementor's face hidden in shadow. She stared past the ragged hood of its cloak and saw putrid, graying flesh sloughing off its bones, wide staring corpse-eyes, slime and pus dripping from its chin—

She slammed her eyes shut and staggered back. Her mind reeled. She remembered Adam smiling down at her, offering a hand to help her up. "Expecto..." she tried to say, but her mouth had gone numb. She wondered dimly how Sky had mustered the strength to scream. Her knees jolted painfully as they hit the grass. Her parents' faces flashed before her in a whirlwind of color, pleading for her to stay. She shouted back, _cowards,_ and Adam took her by the hand and pulled her after him.

She remembered the pressure of his lips on hers, mere feet from the man he'd killed. Bile rose in the back of her throat, just like it had then, and shoved him away. Her hands met solid earth, and then her arms folded under her. Blackness stole across her field of vision, and as she slipped into unconsciousness three voices cried, _"Expecto Patronum!"_

Blake wished they hadn't.

* * *

Oddly enough, Yang wasn't that nervous about whether or not she would be able to produce a Patronus. She probably would have worried about it more if she hadn't been able to see Blake right in front of her, trembling and glancing anxiously from the cage, to the people in front of her, back to the cage again. As it was she was too busy fretting about her partner to spare any thought to what it would be like to face the darkest creature in the world.

She mustered a grin and a thumbs-up for Ruby as her wolf loped towards the chocolate table, but frowned when Blake moved right past nerves and into full-blown panic. Yang bit her tongue—Blake was _right,_ she had to know what they felt like, even if she couldn't cast a Patronus. _Especially_ if she couldn't cast a Patronus, because Dementors had a nasty habit of draining away the magical power their victims needed to escape.

It wasn't like there was any danger. The professors would recast their Patronuses long before Blake was exposed enough to cause any permanent damage. Even those two from team CRDL, who had failed to cast anything at all, hadn't been hurt. They _hadn't,_ Cardin was right there stuffing his face with chocolate. But the way Sky had screamed...

They were probably just sensitive, Yang thought, as Weiss cast her silver albatross. No one knew _why_ certain people were affected more by a Dementor's attack, but it could be that Cardin and Sky were just really, really easily demented. That was what she told herself, very sternly, over and over when Blake moved forward. Her steps were halting, uncertain. Yang almost called out, then scolded herself. Blake raised her wand, staring for a moment at the thing in the cage. Yang could see it even from twenty feet away, the vague outline of what looked like a skull mostly hidden in the shadows of its hood. She shivered.

Then the professors dropped their Patronuses, and it all went horribly wrong. Yang knew, even as Blake staggered backwards and brandished her wand in a wild, desperate arc, that nothing was going to happen. She didn't even realize she was running until she heard the mumbled incantation, only half finished, and the sound of her partner hitting the ground with a soft _thud._

The Dementor loomed over Blake from its place in the cage, and Yang caught a glimpse of its skeletal hand reaching toward her through the bars. _You will not,_ she thought, snarling, and blundered through the starting positions of the Patronus Charm, brought her wand up, and slashed it down savagely.

"Expecto Patronum!" she shouted, and something huge _erupted_ from the tip of her wand. Wide batlike wings shimmered in the afternoon sun, and a long scaly body shot forward. The dragon coiled around Blake, folded its wings over her like a blanket, and bared its teeth at the Dementor.

It was at this point that Yang remembered the teachers were there, and realized they had spoken the incantation at the exact same time that she had. She flushed, embarrassed, because her own Patronus had been a bit pointless in retrospect. Then Blake groaned, and she forgot about everything else. Kneeling next to her, Yang tried to get one of her partner's arms over her shoulder. She wasn't entirely sure if she should be moving her, but getting her _away from the Dementor_ seemed like a good idea.

"Get to the chocolate," Ozpin advised, bending down and peering intently at Blake. Yang nodded, hoisting her teammate into a mostly-upright position and staggering towards the table. Ruby and Weiss met her halfway, hands full of sweets, and Yang lowered her partner to the ground as gently as she could.

To her surprise, Blake was clinging to her so tightly that she couldn't put her down, and had buried her face in Yang's shoulder. Normally she didn't like hugs that much, and Yang would have been quietly thrilled if it hadn't been for the fact that she could feel her heart beating like a rabbit's. Weiss and Ruby knelt on either side of Yang, both holding out bars of chocolate in shaking hands. Team JNPR were right behind them, and behind _them_ the three remaining members of CRDL peered down at Blake with avid curiosity.

"Give them space," Ozpin snapped—it was the first time she had ever heard him raise his voice. The rest of their class backed away at once, looking abashed. Ruby handed Yang a bit of the chocolate.

"Hey," she said gently, trying to coax her partner out of her shoulder. "Have some chocolate, okay?" Blake shook her head, and Yang winced as her grip on her arm grew uncomfortably tight. She started to pry her partner's fingers apart, then stopped when her breath hitched.

"It'll make you feel better," she promised. "Just come out for a second." Another headshake. The chocolate was starting to melt onto her fingers.

Yang braced herself, then pushed Blake away from her, keeping a firm grip on her shoulder. She whimpered as she was forced out into the open, head lolling at a disturbing angle. Her mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, before she mumbled something that sounded like, "No."

"Sorry," Yang murmured, remembering a six-year-old Ruby staring at her with folded arms, eyeing the broccoli on her fork with revulsion. Then she popped the square of chocolate into her partner's mouth. Blake tried to move her head away, then slumped. All the fight seemed to leave her at once.

After that Ruby and Weiss took turns handing Blake chocolate, which she ate without complaint. Yang rubbed her back, wincing when she brushed against her bare shoulder and noticed how cold and clammy it was. When an entire bar had disappeared, Ruby moved to hug Blake's other side. Weiss looked a bit panicked, until she decided to drape her jacket over her teammate's shoulders.

Slowly, fitfully, Blake relaxed. Her hazy expression focused again, and she eventually seemed to realize where she was. She drew back, then looked wildly about her. Ozpin cleared his throat, and she jumped.

"The four of you should return to your dormitory," he suggested. "You will be exempt from any classes you might have for the rest of the day. Rest, and take care of yourselves."

They went without protest, even Weiss, who normally would've objected to a day off. On their way out, they passed through team JNPR who looked on with so much concern that Blake seemed to wilt. Cardin was standing in their path, too. Yang expected him to sneer, and was ready to deck him if he did, but he just stumbled out of the way with his eyes on his feet.

When their dormitory door shut and locked behind them, Yang felt like she could breathe again. She guided Blake over to her bed, then sat down next to her.

"Okay," she blurted, because it was stiflingly quiet and she had no idea what to say. "That was a thing."

"Yang!" Weiss hissed. She was dithering between taking a spot on her own bed and sitting beside Blake, and eventually chose personal space. Ruby made all this a moot point by plopping down next to her.

"Sorry," Blake mumbled, drawing her legs up to her chest.

Yang made a disgruntled noise, and was glad to hear Ruby and Weiss doing the same. "It's not your fault," she insisted.

"I shouldn't have... I thought..."

"That's the Dementation talking," Weiss pointed out. "You can't blame yourself for something no one could have predicted."

"But I _did!"_ Blake stood up and started pacing, wobbling slightly as she walked. "I knew I couldn't do it, I should have gone back to the castle.

"You were right, Blake." Yang got up and put a hand on her shoulder. "We all need to know what they feel like, so that we can get away if we run into them outside of class."

Blake laughed. It wasn't a good sound. "If I ever get close enough to a Dementor to notice that it's there, I'll be on the ground before I can Disapparate." There was a ringing silence. Yang opened her mouth to argue, but found she had nothing at all to say to that.

"Dementors are almost never spotted outside Azkaban," Weiss insisted. "The odds of any of us encountering one is—"

"Exactly the same as the odds of someone finding out what I was doing before Beacon." Blake folded her arms and stuck out her chin, but couldn't quite hide how much she was shaking.

"That isn't right," Yang protested, squeezing Blake's shoulder to reassure herself that she was still there. "I mean, they can't just... that's not _prison,_ it's a death sentence."

Blake snorted. "I'd be luckier than a lot of people. I can't say I'd want my life to last more than a few minutes if I had to spend the rest of it surrounded by Dementors."

Ruby, who had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout their conversation, stood up. "We have to do something," she decided. "Maybe we could teach you."

"I doubt it." Blake sounded almost hollow. "I already tried everything I thought might work."

There was another nasty pause. Ruby's face fell, but then she seemed to rally. "That's okay! I mean, it's why we have teams, right? If any of us sense a Dementor, we can have our Patronuses protect you!"

Blake stared at her for a moment, then sighed. "It's not worth it."

"That's ridiculous," Weiss decided.

"Yes it is!" Ruby yelped, at almost the same time. Yang drew her partner into a sideways hug.

"You're like a second little sister to me, Blake," she said. "I'm not letting a Dementor so even look at you funny, got it?"

"I'm older than you," Blake grumbled.

"You are?"

"By almost six months." Her partner pulled away, smiling weakly.

"You— _You didn't tell us when your birthday was?!"_ Yang forced a look of mock outrage, placing a hand on her chest and gasping dramatically. "That's it. We're throwing a party tomorrow."

"We have class," Weiss reminded her.

"So? Let's just ditch—" she froze, taking a tiny step backwards and away from the blistering glare Weiss was sending her way. "I mean, let's do it Saturday! Nora can probably bring Butterbeer."

"This is why I didn't tell anyone, you know," Blake said dryly, though she looked more amused than annoyed. Yang waved her off.

"Hush. Anyway, just _bear_ with her and I'm sure Nora will help me plan something awesome!"

"Suddenly, I'm glad I can't cast a Patronus."

"Like I don't already make cat puns."

Blake scowled at her. "It might not have been a cat."

"So? That means sometime's I'd have made jokes that _weren't_ about cats."

 _"Damn_ it," Blake hissed, quietly so that Ruby wouldn't hear her. Yang laughed.

As they talked—mostly about party plans, since she'd carefully manipulated Weiss' love of event organization to get her on board—Yang grabbed Blake by the sleeve.

"I mean it, you know," she murmured into her partner's ear. "You and Weiss are my family, just like Ruby is." Blake stared at her a moment, her expression completely incomprehensible. Then she smiled.

 _Mission_ _accomplished,_ Yang thought, grinning back.


End file.
